Centerpieces in a Glass Display Case

I exaggerate. Just the teensiest bit. But it’s true that one of Mr. Neroni’s last gigs ended with accusations of crime and threats of punishment, his boss filing petty larceny charges, which Mr. Neroni staunchly denied.

The charges were dropped. Mr. Neroni’s record is clean. But the drama surrounding his departure two years ago from the Brooklyn restaurant Porchetta, which has since closed, reflected the sort of kerfuffle that he seems to have a special gift for stirring up. Just before his legal contretemps, he did time as a blogosphere whipping boy for his Internet groveling for a James Beard award.

Now he’s at 10 Downing, which went through its own turbulence, the proposed kitchen lineup changing repeatedly before a November opening. That opening was unusually delayed even by the standards of an industry in which “five weeks out” translates into “maybe next millennium.”

Mr. Neroni, by many reports, wasn’t the owners’ first choice to run the kitchen (which he does with input from Katy Sparks, a consultant). But they took a chance on him.

And it turns out that they were right to, because he has rewarded them with cooking more complete and grounded than much of what he’s accomplished before.

He did some excellent work at 71 Clinton Fresh Food on the Lower East Side, but that was a smaller room than 10 Downing’s, with a more succinct bill of fare.

At 10 Downing, in the Village, there’s enough space for about 65 diners now and more than 100 in warm weather, thanks to an outdoor cafe facing the Avenue of the Americas.

And the menu is substantial, not just appetizers and entrees but also a half-dozen sides, some dishes to be shared, and an assortment of charcuterie or salumi (pick your ethnic term and allegiance).

A clarifier before we go any further: 10 Downing’s name makes a British allusion but 10 Downing doesn’t serve British food. The menu has Mediterranean leanings, if any.

It does the requisite contemporary genuflection before swine, though not as floridly as Porchetta did. That restaurant served a margarita with a rim coated in cracklings. This one merely quotes Miss Piggy on the menu.

“Never eat more than you can lift,” she is credited as saying. If you’re A-Rod or Madonna, that leaves you a lot of wiggle (or is it piggle?) room.

Shaped like a triangle and situated on a corner, 10 Downing has the blessing and curse of glass walls on two sides. They give an open feel to the restaurant, which looks like a high-gloss, low-clutter brasserie, but they’re two additional hard surfaces in a restaurant with plenty already. The din can be excruciating.

And the layout is awkward, the narrow side entrance and cramped bar area contributing to a bottleneck of human traffic on the way to the tables.

But the food was more than ample compensation for the aggravation — except on my first visit, around the one-month mark. I’ll long remember that visit for the way a server pitched a steak special. She described it as Piedmont-style, referring to the northern Italian region.

“How so?” one of my companions asked.

“Well, it’s from grass-fed cattle raised in the mountains,” she said.

“In Italy?” I asked.

“Montana,” she conceded.

That night the gnocchi was awash in too much butternut squash — it was all orangey sweetness — and a dish of squid ink agnolotti, filled with a cauliflower cream, was a mushy muddle in which the peekytoe crab over the pasta didn’t really come through.

But months later these dishes were terrific, their proportions fine-tuned, their flavors sharpened. The mushrooms had more say with the gnocchi; the pasta forming the agnolotti had more weight, and the crab had more personality. Slippery red strands of piquillo pepper with it added to the fun.